


With Them

by YurikoNeko (AlaxxisSade)



Series: KKM: Someday We Will Get There [9]
Category: Kyou Kara Maou!
Genre: Angst, Children's Stories, Dark Past, Feels, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Melancholy, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 15:51:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5876710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlaxxisSade/pseuds/YurikoNeko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the person of the past meets the children of the future, and the one in between.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Them

**Author's Note:**

> Almost a solid month of non-stop content, yayyy~

“Murata… Maybe you shouldn’t come with us this time.”

                I pause, then I smile as usual. “Of course, of course. Well, play safe now.”

                “I always do… Well, I always try to. Especially recently…”

                Shibuya is still muttering to himself as he jumps onto his horse. I stand on the castle doorstep, watching and waving him off with my usual smile. He takes Wolfram and Conrad with him for this quadrennial summit, a meeting with all the members of the Alliance, and the first since Conanshia joined.

                Anyone could understand why he doesn’t take me.

                “So we’re stuck with babysitting duty.” Gurrier is still smiling sweetly beside me, even though the corners of his eyes are twitching.

                “…That’s what you say, but where are the kids?”

                “Huh? Ehh, they’re old enough to take care of themselves by now.” He makes a shooing motion at me with his hands.

                “Gurrier, Kari is barely three, and Vincent just only turned five.” By mazoku standards, they’re basically still infants.

                “So? The other two will take care of them.”

                I sigh. He’s lying through his teeth, as expected of a spy—or is it just that he genuinely thinks it’s okay? He hasn’t been the most orthodox parent. It’s a miracle Julie turned out as straight-laced as she did.

                But then again, it’s probably not a good thing that she’s as strict as an old man at the age of six. I’d like to blame it all on Lord Weller, but—I look sideways at my muscular friend, whistling away innocently—it’s most likely because she has had to pull her mother out of so many sticky situations.

                Sheesh, as a veteran spy, Josak should be a lot more capable of caring for himself than he lets on. And yet every time they return from a mission together, Julie will have a long list of complaints about how he messed up, how they pulled through by the skin of their teeth, until even I break into a cold sweat. And it seems the list grows longer and more dangerous the older she gets.

                I know she has good genes and all, but the way he’s raising her is honestly scary.

                As for the other one…

                He’s become my second tea-drinking partner, for whenever Gurrier is out on his missions. Sometimes I bring the tea to his room, too, when he’s sick and on bed rest again.

                Like now…

                “Can you rest properly with them running around like that?” I look at Kari and Vincent, chasing each other around the room and squealing at the tops of their voices, while Julie is yelling herself hoarse from the other end. My head is starting to hurt from the noise, and already I regret giving Josak the day off.

                “Why not?” Shinri asks, giving me that same innocent look. “Just looking at them makes me feel lively, even though I can’t join them.”

                “You…” I don’t know what to say to him. It’s not his fault that he’s fallen sick this time—he catches a cold at the slightest turn of the weather, since his body is like a faulty heater, unable to properly regulate its own temperature. But if you really thought about it, it _is_ his fault, for making his body that way in the first place--

                Kari giggles as she runs past my legs, and I find I can’t scold him again for what he did so many years ago.

                “…You still haven’t told Papa?”

                But he doesn’t have the same reservations.

                “If you just explained it to him, I’m sure he would have taken you along.”

                “You make me sound like a pet puppy left behind on a family vacation.” I smile at him from behind my glasses, confident that I haven’t fallen that low.

                “Of course you’re not,” he concedes. “I’m sure you know exactly what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and you don’t regret a thing you’ve done.”

                “…Now you’re laying it on a bit too thick.”

                “Am I?” He looks at me, wide-eyed. “You let the whole world misunderstand you for the past three years. Even worse, you let Papa misunderstand you for the past three years.”

                “It’s not a misunderstanding. It’s a trap I set for them, and they fell right into it.”

                “You set the trap for everyone else, but not Papa.” Shinri pours himself a cup of tea, and I wait patiently for him to finish it. Ironically, he gets dehydrated easily, too. “Because you won’t explain, he still thinks you’re capable of those despicable things, even though you did it for him.”

                “That’s because I am capable of those despicable things, and precisely for him.”

                Because of Ian, the people of Conanshia had brought a warped impression of Shibuya into the summit three years ago. In those nine months he was gone, Dai Shimaron had utilized his absence to its full potential. For a king to be away at a critical time like this… Even our allies were beginning to wonder, how reliable he would be in a crisis.

                I needed to remind them, of his influence, his strength, and most importantly, his light. The reason why they backed him, the reason he won them over. His willingness to treat everyone equally, and fairly, and kindly, but at the same time, to punish those who are unjust, no matter how close they are to him.

                With a few words and a piece of paper written in my simplest Japanese, I managed all that in one swoop.

                The boy looks at me with eyes a lot more complicated than a six-year-old has any right to be, human or mazoku. Finally, he says, “Mama would kill you if he heard you say that.”

                “That’s why I don’t say it in front of him.”

                But the truth is, Lord von Bielefeld should be more comfortable in his position as Shibuya’s life partner by now. They already have three kids between them, and it’s not like Shibuya would have cheated on him even without the kids.

                “Grandma Jennifer once said you and Papa were like a married couple, is that true?”

                I glance at him sideways. “No. And if one day your mother comes after my life, I’ll know who to blame.”

                “If you say so.” That’s what he says, after he just accuses me of tricking the whole world. “Godfather, when are you going to get married?”

                I sip my tea calmly. “You sound like my mother.”

                “You’re never going to get married, are you?”

                I smile mysteriously, but the truth is I don’t know how to be in a proper relationship. My predecessors’ love lives were disastrous at worst, and non-existent at best. Just like Shibuya wonders how much of Suzanna Julia Lord Weller sees in him, I know that Christine broke the doctor’s heart. Jose Rodriguez calls me Ken, and I know he never sees me as anyone but Murata Ken, but still. I can’t forget how he got caught in the free-wheeling mess that was her life, and as his friend, I can barely forgive the wound she left on his heart.

                I’ve learned my lesson. I, who inherited all those past tragedies, know better than to get into a relationship. People try, but this burden of mine—of ours, is too heavy for anyone else to bear.

                “Muraken-san is never getting married?” Julie says suddenly, taking both Shinri and me by surprise. “Like a monk?”

                “Monk?” Vincent echoes, stopping in mid-chase. “Like Grandpa Günter?”

                “No! Not Grandpa Günter!” Kari sounds terrified. I wipe away some imaginary tears for Lord von Christ, who has never stopped regretting the day he let his actual age slip. Ever since then, Kari has cemented an image of him as a perverted old geezer… which, to be fair, is not far from the truth. It doesn’t help that Wolfram always taught her to stay far away from him whenever he had any strange juices on him…

                “As if I’ll be a monk,” I chuckle. “Monks barely have a life. Me, I like the small pleasures, like going wherever I want, whenever I want.”

                “Mostly you just sit in one place and stare, though.” Shinri grins at me, his face in his hand. “Like a guru on top of a mountain, the wise sage.”

                “…Perhaps.”

                “Muraken-san!” Kari pulls my sleeve suddenly. “Story?”

                Vincent pulls my other sleeve shyly, his face shining with anticipation. Even Julie can’t hide the curiosity in her eyes.

                Only Shinri looks a little pained, and worried.

                I smile brightly at them. “Okay, okay, which story do you want to hear?”

                “Henry!” Kari says immediately. “Doctor Henry!”

                “Hmm… Then have I told you about the time at the train station, when he had to distract a mob…”

                The stories of the Hong Kong singer, the French doctor, the English earl, the little slave boy… I know all of them, and I never thought I would one day use them to make little kids smile.

 

“…Is it okay, though, telling them all this?” the boy asks, after his sister and cousins have finally worn themselves out.

                “I believe my stories are less harmful than the Poison Lady’s.” I stroke Kari’s sleeping head. Of course, I censor and edit them carefully.

                “That’s not what I meant.” Shinri falls silent, before bursting out, “Isn’t it lonely, on top of the mountain?”

                I’ve seen that expression before, in Rodriguez’s eyes. It’s not pity, but a certain sort of empathy. As though he’s feeling the loneliness I must surely feel, and this child without a future is hurting for me, the man with too long of a past.

                I rub his head fondly with my other hand. “A bit, but it’s okay as long as I have visitors who stay for a cup of tea.”

                Shibuya, Rodriguez, Josak, and now you. It’s not a lot, but it’s more than they ever had.

                I’m more than satisfied.

**Author's Note:**

> So this is all I have in mind for the series for now~ The other stuff I want to write is about the kids, but that kind of defeats the purpose of a fan fiction if the main characters are original characters, right...? Even this one is pushing it, but Muraken needs even more family loveeeee~
> 
> Also, I may have gone a bit overboard with that tea-drinking head-canon bit, he sounds like Iroh... Was there even a mention of him liking tea in the novels, wasn't it Shinou who wanted him to stay for tea...


End file.
